Shirley’s Y2K night in a big nutshell:
Is it just me or did the all day press coverage of ringing in the New Year around the globe seem flat and full of expectations of the constant hope that disaster would happen to make the Japanese New Year look at least moderately like a lame mandatory pep rally for the chess club instead of a a crowd of well behaving Asians who wanted to watch the chess club in action. I’ve been better entertained watching carbonation in my soda glass fizz.
Maybe it’s my American pride, maybe WE just know how to do it right, but the Times Square Crowd seemed to be the rowdiest. I could be wrong, but they all strongly smelled of cheap champagne and urine by midnight.
I watched the show with Peter Jennings on it for part of the day before deciding to go to Meijer, our 24 hour all in one (We got what you need and don’t need for Y2K) store. What a hoot. Some people were buying water and batteries, but for the most part the things that seemed to be needed for Y2K, in Mid Michigan at least, were: nachoes, lots of beer, crock pots, laundry hampers, dog food.Mostly folks with a day off of work doing their shopping and last minute holiday item needs. ( I needed to get a presciption filled and needed milk and eggs.In case the cows and chickens are not Y2K compliant.) The only case of full blown hysteria that I could see was one woman buying two cases of Enfamil.
The one item that I thought would be selling like hot cakes and didn’t budge off the shelf, and Meijer missed its chance to make a tidy profit on this for the truly paranoid: Wallets on a Chain. Ever notice that the kind of people who use these things are the kind of people who live in a mobile home park called “Tornado Meadows.” Drive a 20 year old “Carrie” like car and haven’t visited their dentist or used a toothbrush in their lives. I strongly suspect that if I ever took some Bubba’s wallet and lived to tell about it, I would find food stamps, the number for a bail bondsman scrawled on the back of a pack of matches, and the roll your own cigerette paper inside.
Went to a party hosted by my neighbors. A costume party where you come dressed as your favorite decade in the last 100 years.It was a great idea ( Mine) because I wanted to host a party but knew being in the last few weeks of pregnancy, I wouldn’t have the patience or the energy level to do any such thing for such a big event. Ok, that’s putting it nicely, I would want to kick everyone out at 10pm and go to bed, regardless if we were on the edge of an Apocalyptic situation or not.
Since my husband and I started looking for our costumes an hour before the party, I wore my Dad’s WW2 army shirt and hubby and his friend ( whom we invited along at the last minute because he had nothing else to do) went as something really creative, " Two Guys from the 90’s" although I introduced them as a “Same Sex couple employeed by Disney.” to show how truly 90ish they were.Out of the closet and both have hospitalization insurance.
I called our hostess and asked if she wanted me to bring along any games ( I have all the popular ones) or a couple of decks of cards, just in case. I was advised that we would have fun just staring at everyone and don’t worry about it. About thirty minutes after arrival,having my fill of all the 20 some party guests ( all decked out nicely), cocktail weenies, and not being able to drink due to my pregnant status, made me wish for even the lamest game ( Dominoes) in my collection.
Even with a decent buzz, I would have sensed the party being flat. The couple who hosted it put a tremendous effort of getting everything out of their basement ( enough to fill their three car garage!) and building a temporary bar and nice decorations, and all. Their costumes ( a flapper and a gangster) were good and the food was incredible, but they forgot one of the key ingredients of a party, entertaining their guests with something other than booze and loud music. That way of entertaining was amusing back in the blur called my early twenties.Now, pregnant or not, it was annoying. I know with the issue of the noise level of the music, I stood alone.
The other guests seemed to be looking around for something to do other than the obligatory shots and “So, is this the end of the world as we know it or what?” chit chat. I sat on a plaid couch (circe 1968) in the corner thinking to myself while watching a couple of guys play darts like they really wanted too. “I could take the bull by the horns. Be the alpha person here and get things going and assert myself.” The music was too loud for me to even think straight and I truly did not have the energy to get off the couch or give a crap.
Then I thought " I could go over to the clot of the people by the bar, well lubed but highly subdued, and amuse them with my witty personality, great comebacks and one liners.Make fun of their costumes and whatnot. I would be the funniest person at the party. I shared this with my dart playing husband (his team, the Rabid Chipmunks, lost) and he said," Even if they weren’t drunk you’d be the funniest one here, but since they are they won’t remember anything you say anyway in the morning." And all my wittiness would be an exercize in futility. Story of my life.
So, I amused myself by watching the minutes tick by like days and writing on the autograph wall. The neighbors are going to panel or drywall the basement ( I forget) and urged everyone to use a permanent marker to sign their names and write something funny. I should have known by THAT alone I was the funniest person there. Everyone else wrote these lame things ( even before the alcohol set in) that belonged in a high school freshmans year book " Bottoms Up, drink your cup. Happy New Year" Where I wrote deeper stuff, “If you sat all by yourself and no one saw you, do you still exist?”. It was the lamest one I had and a few didn’t get it. It was enough to make me cry in a beer, if wasn’t pregnant and I drank beer.
In the area of “2000 Guest List” written by the hosts on the wall, I made boobs out of two of the zeros in 2000 and turned it into a woman wearing a bikini. Sex or anything like this is always a hit and some idiot half way through graffittied over it with doodles that made no sense whatsoever. I wouldn’t have minded the graffitti if it was understandable, but it wasn’t and it was the best woman in a bikini I had ever drawn in my life. I mean, would you scribble a mustache on the Mona Lisa? By 11pm I stopped writing my thesis on the wall and wished for the damn ball to drop like a lead weight.
I know every family has their own way of entertaining. If my own mom had hosted a party, it would have been twenty different kinds of food, tons of snacks, booze (mixed drinks mainly), and chit chat all night. And maybe, just maybe, a rousing game of Pictionary or Charades. No loud suffering music. Not a bad evening, not a great evening. It would be catagorized as a nice time and beat watching cable.
If my cousins hosted the party it would be most of the same above, except, the games are always competitive and there would be a couple of movies to watch when you got mad at losing in Trivial Pursuit to your cousin who has the Trivia IQ of an eggplant leaving you to storm away in a huff because he knew more about Hitler than you did. Catagorized as: Better than my mom’s house, and more entertaining than cable. Cheaper than going to the bar and no smoke.
If I hosted the party, It would be most of the above, except the 20 different kinds of food. (Bring a dish to pass if you want to eat something tasty cause you ain’t getting it here.) And what I like to do, is make up a game like, " How well do you know your spouse?" ( Similar to the Newlywed Game) and watch the fire works start early. Then we mellow out for Charades. ( Not your Mom and Dad’s charades, no -siree, but whomever is doing the charade picks blindly a CD from the hosts collection and selects a song to pantomine out. When you are too old to slam dance or too embarrassed to do body shots, CD Charade is a nice
